Roadmap for front-end developers to learn cloud

You are a front-end developer and planning to learn the cloud. However, you have no idea where to start? Then this blog is for you.

Cloud is very vast and has more than 100+ services. As a FE or an engineer without any clear plan, it would be impossible to navigate through the cloud.

I started my cloud journey a few years back from Azure and then move to AWS. I was lost but today when I look back I can see that what worked and what didn't. So, based on my experience here is a roadmap for you:

1 . Start with any cloud vendor all are the same concepts just the name of the services is different

2 . Remember always WHY you are doing it - upskilling, backend knowledge, support for your side project?

Pre-requisites

1 . Knowledge of backend language would be helpful or NodeJS

2 . Knowledge of how client and server work

3 . Knowledge of suggested pre-read: Multi-tier app

Step 1: Cloud fundamentals

• What is cloud

• Why do we need cloud

• Different types of clouds

• Cloud computing models

• on-prem vs cloud: pros and cons

• Ways to access the cloud: Console, SDK, CLI

Step 2: Regions, Availability zones, and edge-locations

• What is a regions, AZs, edge locations

• Why do we need them

Step 3: Services

• Type of services

• Services: Regional or global

• Billing model

• Managing resources (deleting, disabling etc.)

Step 4: Host a static website

• S3 - What, and why

• How to create a bucket

• Host a static website, or content

• Enable versioning, server access logs, and cross-region replication

• Enable CloudFront

• Buy and map a custom domain

Step 5: IAM and security

• What is IAM

• Why IAM and Security

• Create: a user, role, group, and permission

• What is policy and create one for S3

Step 6: Host a dynamic app on EC2

• What is EC2

• Create an EC2

• SSH to an EC2

• Deploy a web app to EC2 (nodeJS)

• What is Elastic IPs

• How to get one

Step 7: Database

• What is database

• Why we need Database

• Different Types of Database

• Create and deploy a DB (AWS-managed RDS or DynamoDB )

• Create and Deploy a DB (Custom)

• Scaling, Backups, updating a DB

Remember you are a front-end developer you can relate to static web apps (HTML, ReactJS, etc), NodeJS, and databases. So, you are just now expanding your skills to understand and implement what goes behind the scenes of hosting an application or database. What it takes to make an app up and accessible for the world.

So, far you have learned and done hands-on different services and projects:

1. Fundamentals of cloud

2. IAM

3. Cloud vs on-premises

4. S3

5. EC2

6. Database

What to learn next:

• Scaling

• Security

• Static app vs dynamic

• Multi-tier application

• Disaster recovery

• Single Point of Failure

• On-demand scaling

• Payment/billing of cloud services

Happy Learning!!